MPs including Mark Oaten, Austin Mitchell and Iain Duncan Smith are to get a taste of council estate living for a Channel 4 documentary to be broadcast in the runup to next year's general election.

Tower Block of Commons will see the Liberal Democrats' Oaten, Labour's Mitchell, former Tory leader Smith, and his colleague Tim Loughton MP, the shadow minister for children, living in four different council estates and tower blocks across the country.

The show is to be broadcast on Channel 4, ahead of the general election, and forms part of the broadcaster's programming lineup for the early part of next year, unveiled today.

In early 2010 Channel 4 will also broadcast Mo, a docudrama starring Julie Walters as the late Mo Mowlam, who as Northern Ireland secretary played a key role in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Other factual highlight of Channel 4's winter 2010 season include The Bible: A History, a series exploring the origins, ideas and influence of seven sections of the scriptures.

Each documentary in the series will have a different presenter, including Howard Jacobson trying to reclaim Creation from the creationists; Bettany Hughes on the Bible and gender; Rageh Omaar looking at the religious text's political legacy in the Middle East; and Ann Widdecombe on the Ten Commandments.

Time Team host Tony Robinson is fronting Blitz Street, which will recreate a typical 1940s row of terraced houses – then subject them to the kind of damage inflicted by German bombs.

Bloody Foreigners is a new series of drama-docs highlighting the role played by foreigners in key moments in British history, including the great fire of London, the Battle of Britain and Trafalgar.

Maternity wards will be the focus of Life Begins, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series in the style of the critically lauded The Family.

Channel 4 is also broadcasting a season of programmes about India early next year around the UK terrestrial premiere of Film4's multi-Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire.

The India season will include a Dispatches documentary special on the real Indian "slumdogs" and an edition of Secret Millionaire filmed on the subcontinent.

Jamie Oliver will return to the network with a new series with the working title Jamie Does, in which the TV chef pays a first visit to six locations – Marrakech, Athens, Venice, Andalucia, Stockholm and the French Pyrenees.

On Channel 4's digital channels, E4 will begin broadcasting US musical comedy Glee and Family Guy animated spin-off The Cleveland Show early next year.

More4 has The Good Wife, the US legal drama starring Julianna Margulies, and will take over broadcasting Crufts from the BBC, which dropped the annual dog show in 2007.

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